THE CELTIC CONNECTION » DECEMBER 1996/JANUARY 1997
Page 7
A Sorrowful Chapter
Continued from page 6
of the highly profitable sheep so the landlords started to move the people out of their ancient family homes.
The landlords called this "the Improvements," because they saw it as a way of improving the profitability of their land. The people referred to it as "the Clearances" because they were simply cleared out of the way for no other reason than profit.
To be "cleared," meant that you were compulsorily evicted, with no right of appeal, and often in unnecessarily violent circumstances. Most homes were burned down without sufficient time being allowed to remove people or property. Roof timbers were destroyed so that houses or temporary shelters could not be rebuilt.
A Clearance mania set in and at its height, as many as 2,000 homes were being burned in a day. The Duchess of Sutherland, on seeing homeless, starving tenants on her husband's estate, remarked in a letter to a friend in England, "Scotch people are of happier constitution and do not fatten like the larger breed of animals."
Some tenants were rehoused in inferior areas, far from their original homes, but many were forced to emigrate to Canada and America. In 1826, MacLean of Coll, owner of the Isle of Rhum,
[>aid five pounds and 14 shil-ings passage for each of the 300 people he evicted to be sent to Canada.
This large investment was well-worth the cost, since income from the island rose, from 300 pounds Sterling per annum in rent, to 800 pounds Sterling per annum, from sheep.
Deer hunting became popular in the Highlands and Islands, and soon even more people were being cleared to make way for deer. By the mid-Nineteenth Century, the price of wool had fallen dramatically and deer became the new source of income for the landlords.
Between 1840 and 1880, over 40,000 people were Cleared from the Isle of Skye alone. Many islands and mainland rural areas were completely depopulated to make way for more deer and sheep.
On the islands of Barra, Benbeculaand South Uist, people were called to meetings in the village halls by their landlord, Gordon of Cluny, on the pretext of discussing fair rents.
When they got to the meeting places, they were tied hand and foot, thrown into ships and sent to America with nothing other than the clothes on their backs.
It is difficult for us today to imagine such a thing being possible, but a quote from an eye-witness Barra woman, Catherine Mac-Phee, describes the following terrible terrible scene:
"I have seen the women putting the children in the carts which were being sent from Benbecula and the Iochdar to Loch Boisdale, while their husbands lay bound
"I saw a man who was caught and tied and knocked down by a kick despite the fact he was trying to bury his four dead children before being sent to America."
in the pen and were weeping beside them, without power to give them a helping hand, though the women themselves were crying aloud and their little children wailing like to break their hearts.
"I have seen the big strongmen, the champions of the countryside, the stalwarts of the world, being bound on Loch Boisdale quay and cast into the ships as would be done to a batch of horses or cattle in the boat. The bailiffs and the constables and the policemen gathered behind them in pursuit of them."
Another eye-witness of this dreadful event said, "the people were seized and dragged on board. Men who resisted were felled with truncheons and handcuffed; those who escaped, including some who swam ashore from the ship, were chased by the police and press gangs."
Another reported, "I saw a man who was caught and tied and knocked down by a kick despite the fact he was trying to bury his four dead children before being sent to America."
The legislation governing slave ships from Africa was far more humane than the legislation governing the emigration ships. Ships carrying in excess of 700 emigrants would only have been allowed to carry 490 slaves. Three out of every 20 emigrants died on the ships.
In 1834, more than 700 people died inshipwrecks. Between 1847 and 1853, at least 49 emigrants boats, each carrying between 600-1,000 passengers, were lost.
The medical examiner at the Grosse Isle Immigration Station in the St. Lawrence River, Canada, reported seeing the latest batch of cleared Highlanders.
"I never, during my long experience at the station, saw a body of emigrants so destitute of clothing and bedding. Many children of nine or 10 years old had not a rag to cover them.
"Mrs. Crisp, the wife of the master of the ship 'Admiral' was busily employed all the voyage in converting empty bread bags, old canvas and blankets, into coverings for them."
Between 1815 and 1838, Nova Scotia received 22,000 Cleared Highlanders. In 1841, Quebec could not keep up with the number of destitute Scottish immigrants being given Poor Relief.
Eventually, after over 10 years of abuse, the people made a stand. Riots broke out on Skye. Gunboats, marines and police officers were called in to fight unarmed men and women. Massive rent strikes were organised and articulate appeals made to the rest of the United Kingdom via the press.
In 1886, "The Crofters Act" was passed, which finally gave the Highlanders and Islanders some basic land rights and rights of tenure.
What the government, the landlords and the press failed to understand was that the crofters did not want ownership of the land — they had never personally owned it since it was clan land. What they did want, was the imposition of certain standards of conduct and responsibility on the landlords. They never received this.
It was not until 90 years later, in 1976, that the crofters were eventually given the right to buy the freehold of their croft. The price was 15 times the holding's controlled rent.
Incredibly, it was not until 1991, 105 years after the passing of the original Crofter s Act, that crofters were eventually given the right to plant trees on their land. Up until then, trees planted on crofts were considered the property of the landlord.
In 1993, two farmers on the Isle of Arran were evicted from their family farms to make way for more deer. The Clearance mentality is still with us today.
Despite the hundreds of thousands of people Cleared, evicted, and forced to emigrate, in many cases left to die, very few people know of this tragic episode in Scotland's history.
Even the Encyclopedia Britan-nica (15th Edition) has only one sentence on the Clearances, and implies that this only took place in Strathnaver between 1810 and 1820. None of the most common reference encyclopedia in libraries today mention the Clearances at all. It is, as if, they never happened.
•
The Highland Clearances Memorial Fund has been set up to educate present-day Scots and their descendants about this inhuman treatment of their ancestors. If you would like more detailed information about The Clearances, write to The Highland Clearances Memorial Fund at P.O. Box 20927, Juneau, AK 99802, U.S.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Blackie, John — The Scottish Highlands and the Land Laws, 1885
Craig, David — On the Crofters' Trail, London 1990
Devine, T.M. — The Great Highland Famine, Edinburgh 1988
Devine, T.M. — Clanship to Crofters' War, Manchester 1994
Gunn, Donald & Spankie, Mari — The Highland Clearances Wayland, England 1993
Hunter, J. — The Making of the Crofter Community, Edinburgh 1976
MacKenzie, Alexander — A History of the Highland Clearances, 1883
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